He took part in the naval operations in the Dardanelles campaign, where he was involved in rescuing the shipwrecked crew of the state transport Admiral Hamelin.

At his own request, Robert was recalled to active duty by the Minister of Colonies, Georges Mandel, on 7 June 1939, sailing on the cruiser Jeanne d'Arc on 1 September 1939.

Arriving in Fort-de-France a fortnight later, on 15 September he took up the political role of High Commissioner of France in the West Indies, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, and Guiana.

He had at his disposal the cruisers Émile Bertin and Jeanne d'Arc; the aircraft carrier Béarn (which carried 104 aircraft bought by France from the United States before the Armistice, diverted while en route from Canada to France);[7] the auxiliary cruisers Barfleur and Quercy; the oil tanker Var; the aviso Ville-d'Ys; and finally a large garrison in Martinique.

After the Armistice, rather than the pre-war aim of establishing a Western Atlantic theatre of operations, Robert's men were to ensure the protection of a stock of 286 tons of gold from the Bank of France, intended as payment for the war materiel purchased in the United States.

[8][9][10] Robert refused to recognize the resolutions, of 14 June 1940, made in support of Free France by the General Councils of Martinique and Guadeloupe, taking the view that external pressure was being exerted on those legislatures.

[11] However, Robert had received a High Commissioner's powers from Vichy France, which gave him authority over the existing colonial framework in the French Caribbean.

In his memoire, La France aux Antilles 1939-1943, Robert argued that his support for Vichy was essential, as he had "an overriding obligation to safeguard the national sovereignty, as represented by the home government, in legal succession to the Third Republic in a period of alarming crisis".

[16] Suzanne Cesaire ran afoul of the regime's pre-publication censorship when applying for a paper ration to print Tropiques; she could only reestablish publication after 1943.

[19] When the United States entered the war in December 1941, Robert confirmed past commitments to Frederick Horne, U.S. Vice-Chief of American Naval Operations.

After French Guiana rallied to Free France in March 1943, an insurrection broke out on 24 June in front of the Fort-de-France war memorial.

Operation Asterisk was an Allied plan to provoke an uprising on the island if Admiral Robert had refused to negotiate a neutral settlement after accepting the armistice.

[32] Local residents were also unconvinced by attempts to popularise Robert through public display of his image and use of Creole to hail him as "Li bon papa Pétain".

[33] Above all, they reproached him for his contempt of local politicians, for not having sided with General de Gaulle from the outset, his repression of dissidents, and his Catholic and bourgeois origins.

[34] Thousands of young men and women left the island on small boats to join the Free French on Dominica and St Lucia.

[37] Once they had arrived and made contact with the Free French, who were headquartered on Dominica, they would be found places to train and get other support from local representatives.

Basic necessities such as flour, salted meat, soap, and cloth were unavailable for weeks at a time and had to be substituted with local products, even cutting petrol with rum to fuel cars.

For months, Admiral Robert had been receiving countless petitions from his constituents urging him to let this ardently French territory do its duty to France.

I myself had found the opportunity to send the doctor general Le Dantec to Fort-de-France in April 1943 to offer Admiral Robert a satisfactory solution.